Da Monkey Is Off My Back!!

Well... I had my half marathon yesterday!! If you are a frequent and dedicated follower of my blog, you would know that it was the Brooksie Way Half Marathon. I ran it last year for its inaugaral event, and it was the toughest half I ever ran. Today... I still say it was the toughest half I have ever run!!! It has 5 miles straight of just uphill... race director said that was done on purpose to keep in the mode of challenging courses like the CRIM 10 Miler. I hate running these hilly courses, but it does make me stronger. But that 30k I did on Labor Day STILL TO THIS DAY has me all in a flux!!! I STILL say I'm never running that one again!!

I was a little nervous because I was unable to get my race packet the day before at the expo, but it was smooth sailing getting it in the morning. Got there at 7am... it was like 50 degrees... PERFECT!! This year we didnt have the episode of the deer rambling through the crowd and hurdling cars like last year near the start, LOL. I decided to run with my Ipod, because there was NO entertainment on the sidelines to pump me up!! I started with the 7 minute per mile group... it went all the way to 16 mpm pace groups (in my opinion, that is WALKING!!!). I peeked at the front line to see if anybody I knew... lo and behold I see a man with a stark resemblance of our USA Olympic Marathon runner Brian Sell... well u guess it... it was him. So now I thought "OK, who's going to get second place" lol.

The gun goes off... half a mile in I'm at 6:30 pace... caught up in the excitement, so I slow down. 7 minute pace felt perfect. I kept this pace for the first 4 miles or so. I ran along side this guy from my CRIM race... yeah, the CRAZY LOOKING guy from my pic in the blog 2 down from here. He went down with a hammy and I never saw him again, LOL. We ran along a trail, and they were serving water... uh, no thanks!! Dust and leaves flying all over the place... not my cup of joe (as the old saying goes). Anyways... I get to mile 5 and I do notice that its getting a little bit tougher to keep pace. So I thought to myself "The pace will suffer going uphill, just keep the effort even". My long legs didnt help me one bit, but I pushed up the hills and thought "Rest at the crescent" (aka top of hill). My legs were BURNING!!

I get to mile 10 where I made my last 5k dash last year, but didnt have the strength this time. Looking back, my times were similar for the last 5k, but my effort this time was a lot less. Passed people left and right (I love when that happens). The crowd gets denser, and there are a lot of kids cheering us on. I think I hi-5'd about 30 kids on the sideline during the run. Now I pass mile 12 which was an uphill battle too, and things looked different. THEY CHANGED THE FINISH!!! I knew exactly where I was going to kick from last year. I somehow always slow down when I dont know where the finish is. So I thought "Just run the mile you are in... dont worry about the finish". I did a lot of thinking this race, LOL. So 0.25 mile from finish I see the end and its downhill to the finish... then outta nowhere, a guy zips past me to the finish. I was like "whatever... my chip time is better", then my pride kicked in after he got like 10 meters ahead of me and I sprinted like I aint never sprinted b4 in my adult life!! LOL. I walked that bamma down and it was a foto-finish! He may have outleaned me, but I won... look at the times, dead heat until the fat lady sung!!

Preston Thomas #1979

Farmington Hills, MI

Age: 35 Gender: M

Distance	HALF MAR
Clock Time	1:36:44
Chip Time	1:36:39
Overall Place	138 / 2463
Gender Place	125 / 1201
Division Place	24 / 188
Split	48:51
Divtotal	188
Sextotal	1175
Pace	7:23

Dan Turnas #117

Rochester Hills, MI

Age: 32 Gender: M

Distance	HALF MAR
Clock Time	1:36:44
Chip Time	1:36:39
Overall Place	139 / 2463
Gender Place	126 / 1201
Division Place	19 / 145
Split	49:49
Divtotal	145
Sextotal	1175
Pace	7:23

Of course Brian Sell wo n. I could have caught him if the course wasn't so congested and I didnt start that far behind... I'll get him next time!! But I was happy with my performance, near flawless from my standards except I could have still run faster when no on hills. I felt GREAT at the finish, recovered in like only 2 minutes. Oh, I did almost 4get to stop my Garmin. I looked at it.. 1:36:xx. A new PR!!!!!!!!!! And on this hellova course!! Just think what I could have done on a "normal" course. So now the monkey is off my back. I hadnt PR'd since I jumped out of bed and ran my first ever Half Marathon 2 years ago, after never running farther than 6 miles EVER and not training (granted that was a flatter than pancake course) in Grand Rapids. So I decided to make my Boston Qualifier attempt here too... more on THAT in another blog where I'll be whining!!

So now I'm ecstatic. I'm getting on par now for that 3:15:00... if I can run this time twice all in one race, LOL!! 2009 has been a great year, being that I actually trained somewhat this year. Looking forward to my marathons. This half was actually not bad in the sense that it didnt seem like a long race. I'm liking running again... My pops asked me "Aint u tired of all dat running??" I gave him that "You're stupid and I'm smarter than you" look, LOL. Now its taper mode... Oct 18 cant come fast enough!!

MY SPLITS:

http://connect.garmin.com/splits/15445556

So now I'm on a mission to drop that old 10k time of mine, and I run on...